How to test Base 512k Address Lines \ VOGONS

How to test Base 512k Address Lines

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First post, by TheAbandonwareGuy

Posted on 2016-03-01, 23:22

TheAbandonwareGuy Offline

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Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1551
Joined: 2016-03-01, 02:09
Location: Southern Illinois, United States of America

Ok so i have a slight problem with my Retro machine. It won't boot. It's a Digital Celebris XL 590 with:

Twin Socket 7 90MHZ Pentiums
48MB of RAM across 4 slots
TRIDENT TVGA 3900D ISA Video Card 1MB
NVIDIA GeForce2MX PCI 32MB (No thats not its boot GPU)
2x Broadband Adapters
SoundBlaster 16 ISA
2GB HDD
Quad Speed SoundBlasterCD CD Drive

Basically i sat it down kind of hard one day and ever since its given beep code 1-3-4-1, Check 512k Base Address Lines

Im not really sure what the base memory is or how to test the base address lines. Couldnt find anything in the Digital Coporation repair manual.

Ive checked every connection and junction. The only thing i can think of is the RAM looking thing on the CPU board wiggles side to side a bit but is all the way in the slot.

How do i go about trying to fix this? i really dont want to have to pay 280 dollars to get a new retro PC off ebay (i paid 15 for this one, had been sitting in a garage for 20 years, worked when i got it though)

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

Reply 1 of 2, by gg1978

Posted on 2016-03-05, 03:21

gg1978 Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 20
Joined: 2015-05-09, 04:09

That error implies that it's having trouble addressing system memory.. Probably either bad SIMM's or the mainboard chipset is failing.. You might try reseating the CPU card.

Reply 2 of 2, by TheAbandonwareGuy

Posted on 2016-03-29, 00:20

TheAbandonwareGuy Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1551
Joined: 2016-03-01, 02:09
Location: Southern Illinois, United States of America

gg1978 wrote:
That error implies that it's having trouble addressing system memory.. Probably either bad SIMM's or the mainboard chipset is failing.. You might try reseating the CPU card.

OK beep code error is gone (swapped out the DIMM on the CPU board with another identical one). New issue: Both CPUs are heating up, no video output. This is quickly turning into a nightmare.

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

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